British artist Simon Fujiwara’s new Luxembourg exhibition tackles Guernica, syphilis and the death of a Japanese pornstar

Mudam Luxembourg (Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean) is presenting a two-decade survey of British artist Simon Fujiwara titled “A Whole New World” from 20 March to 23 August. A central new work reinterprets Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937) using Fujiwara’s cartoon character Who the Baer, depicting a post-conflict scene of bodies, bombs, and drones and titled “A Whole New World (for Who?).” The exhibition also includes works in which Fujiwara discusses contracting syphilis, including “Syphilis: A Conquest” (2020–23) featuring busts of Francisco de Goya, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, whom he calls his “syphilitic comrades.” Another installation commemorates Japanese gay porn star Koh Masaki, who died in 2013 at age 29, and the show is organized as themed “lands” inspired by the museum’s floor plan resembling a theme park.

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